Insert Canada Here: An Introduction by Richard Cumyn
The idea of identifying a national literature or, in this
case, trying to present writing representative of Canada,
is a doomed exercise from the start. Someone is always left
out. Literary excellence must share equal billing on the
marquee with national identity, an unquiet pairing at the
best of times. John Metcalf, one of our finest prose
stylists and, in his capacity as an editor over the past 35
years, a selfless encourager of young Canadian writers,
balks at the notion of actively trying to build a national
literature. "I've been working always with literary goals in
mind, not aims of identity or unity, or any such thing. But
we've all been self-conscious about the fact that we are
living through an extraordinary period of establishing
things." (The New Quarterly, Fall 1996)
Literary excellence then, and not national identity, is the
basis on which I chose these particular works. They are in
no way a representative sampling of Canadian literary
writing. What I received, surprisingly, when I invited
submissions from these writers I knew and admired, were five
pieces that worked wonderfully well as a set. Brian Bartlett
sifts the ashes of memory for lost embers that might be
coaxed alight. Ian Colford leads us into the mind of that
most disturbing of men: the urbane stalker.
Christian Petersen marks on a calendar the oil-stained
bathos and quirky humour of shift workers in a British
Columbia lumber mill. We drive headlong with Colin Morton
across the boundaries separating nations and geographies of
the mind. Alan Cumyn writes about survival in the guerilla
war that is small-press publishing in this country. And to
these I've been presumptuous enough to add a story of my
own.
On behalf of these fine writers I would like to thank Doug
Lawson for suggesting this special insert to The Blue Moon
Review, a publication with which I'm proud to be associated.
The essay, stories, and poems included here won't tell you
anything definitive about Canada. Our traditional symbols,
moose and mountie, voyageur and beaver, have a fusty,
souvenir-store quality about them now. Today we tend to see
ourselves increasingly as a blended family of many cultures
and languages rather than the edgy, francophone-anglophone
marriage for which we're better known. We recognize
ourselves best, it seems, when we are gazing outward, to
other lands and other ways of living, through the eyes of
those who have passed through our Arrivals gates most
recently. We are less and less the captives of a harsh
climate and an impenetrable land. Canada is as much an idea
of civility and peace as it is a vast wilderness full of
untapped natural resources. Our cities are consistently
chosen some of the best in the world in which to live and
work. We are Canadian, we tell ourselves, because we are not
British or American, because a French-speaking nation exists
within our confederation, because we value order and good
government over individual liberty. But even those
cornerstones are crumbling. Quebec wants to leave the fold.
Our military peacekeepers exhibit a streak of nastiness,
especially in hot climates. We're dismantling the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation as we dismantled that earlier sinew
of nationhood, coast-to-coast passenger rail service.
Provinces such as Alberta are rebelling against the new
federal law that strengthens gun control. Ontario, where I
live, is taking the expression "lean and mean," as it
applies to health care and education spending, to new lows.
I could go on.
All contents copyright © 1996, The Blue Moon Review, All Rights Reserved.